What We Found in Skopje

On July 25, 1963, Sam’s sister Nancy Hamilton Harrison and George Scriabine, her fiancé, were traveling on a motor scooter through Yugoslavia on their way to Greece. They stopped in Skopje for the night, checking in to Hotel Macedonia at the corner of Ulica Maksim Gorki and Poshtad Macedonia streets near the stone bridge that crossed the Vardar river. The next morning, July 26, at 5:17 AM a 6.9 magnitude earthquake (Richter) hit Skopje demolishing 80% of the city, including the Hotel Macedonia and killing Nancy and George, along with more that 1,000 other souls.

Sam has been longing to visit Nancy’s grave since this tragedy occurred, and it has always been on our shared list of places to go. So a major intention of this journey has been aiming towards Skopje.

The drive from Dubrovnik was long and challenging. Despite GPS advice that it would take 6-7 hours, it took twelve! The roads for much of the trip were narrow, curving, and unlit. There was construction and one way traffic controls, not to mention a couple of sustained downpours. By the time we arrived at our Airbnb, we were flattened.

We got up late the next morning and thanks to Tony, our interesting and terrific landlord, found our way to Dukat – the restaurant we ate in at least once a day for the rest of our stay. Fabulous food and lovely hospitality from Ellie, the owner.

Then we called a taxi to go out to the Butel Cemetery, where we knew Nancy was buried. Thinking we had a grave number, 86 – V, and a picture of the headstone designed by Rik, Nancy’s father, we were anticipating an easy time of it. Our driver was Darko, who spoke a little bit of English and happened to know someone who worked at the cemetery. That was our first stroke of good luck. Although his friend was not there, Darko explained our situation to the workers and everyone was eager to help out. They took us up to the earthquake section of the cemetery – filled with white granite headstones, many unmarked, of a standard size and shape, low to the ground. But no sign of the headstone we were seeking. The grass was knee high, so it involved wading through the grass and brushing it away from each stone in order to read the names. After going through about half of that section, we gave up and vowed to come back the next day.

The next day it was late before we got our act together, but that was good, because Darko was available. And he arrived at the flat to say his friend had found the grave! He actually had seen the headstone 7-8 years previously and when Darko called him the first night to tell him about it, he remembered. So as soon as he got to work, he went on a mission! And found the grave! What a MIRACLE!  It seemed to us to be a combination of synchronicity, karma and good luck!

Sam cleaned off the stone and it’s quite close to what Rikki designed for her. And behind it is the generic stone that is on every grave in that area – written in Cyrillic. It may be that Nancy’s grave is the only one in the earthquake victim sector to have a second stone.

The relief of finding Nancy’s grave was terrific and we spent a quiet evening reflecting on her loss and ours.

The next day we arrived unannounced at the City Museum in the Old Railway Station, hoping to share some of the articles that Sam’s family had saved about Nancy and the earthquake. After a brief look at the exhibit, Mihail, the director of the museum, showed up to meet us. He was ecstatic to hear about some new documents to add to their collection and suggested that we return the next day to meet with Zoja Bogdanovska, the curator of the exhibition. She offered to have the articles scanned so that we could keep the originals and was delighted to have new material. She also gifted Sam with 2 books about the earthquake and the museum exhibit.

When we visited the site of the Hotel Macedonia, we were a bit shocked. Two buildings of approximately equal stature stood side by side until the earthquake reduced one to rubble while the other remained standing. The terrible irony of being in the wrong building was heartbreaking and incomprehensible.

After the meeting with the curators, we took a stroll around the center of Skopje, which had been the focus of a major beautification project by the last federal administration. According to both Darko and Mihail, North Macedonia wasn’t that much different depending on who was in charge – rightists or leftists, nothing seemed to change very much. But about 10 years previously, with a right wing government running the show, the decision was made to beautify Skopje in order to attract more tourists. So, many statues were erected, the center was cleaned up and major hotels were encouraged to build. Mihail claims that not much has changed except that tens of millions of dollars were spent on this project that might have provided more economic opportunities for North Macedonians than the statues, fountains and hotels have done.

After an emotional visit here, we are heading to Greece for only a few days. We have to be in Paris on August 1st to drop off our rental car and head to Gothenburg to pick up the new car. In order to enjoy Italy on a more leisurely schedule, we are taking a ferry to Bari and then traveling north. We are hoping to come back to Greece (no car this time) from St. Rémy at a later date.

We are missing you all,

Donna, Sam & LuLu

July 12, 2019